


The Ghost of Gotham

by WhatATime



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Batfamily Feels, Brotherly Love, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne-centric, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, POV Multiple, References to Depression, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Tim Drake is a Talon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 20:38:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18698731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatATime/pseuds/WhatATime
Summary: How many people die alone? How many people die lonely? What’s the difference in the numbers? Is the tolerance nominal? Paltry?





	The Ghost of Gotham

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> \- Damian's not Bruce's kid. Same goes for Tim.  
> \- Damian's an artist and an assassin.  
> \- Damian's very metaphorical, but he's not a metaphor.

“Nice of you to visit.” Dick takes in the five o’ clock shadow and ghost in his living room.

 

Damian is a ghost, after all. The boy floats around, rarely speaking unless you spark his interest, haunting people he enjoys, whispering in the dark, forever broken, wholly untouchable, pale as snow.

 

He pulls the boy into a light hug as if any tighter would make Damian break. The boy is-- at least in Dick’s mind-- frail in a metaphorical sense that can’t be ignored. “Are you staying for dinner?” He knows Damian rarely eats, and when he does, it’s usually a soup of sorts he carries in a thermos.

 

A nod as arms snake around Dick’s waist. He eats for Dick if it’s dinner time, or if he’s particularly tired. It seems like such a day where both have graced them.

  
“What’re you hungry for?”

 

“I have soup,” Damian answers, voice muffled by Dick’s BPD issued windbreaker.

 

“What kind?”

 

“Chicken. Did you want any?”

 

“Nah. Think I’ll have something with a little more sustenance.”

 

“Cereal, I presume.”

 

“Yeah.” Dick releases the boy, brushing a kiss on his forehead as he does. “Tag along on patrol tonight?”

 

“I suppose.”

…

Tim loves Damian. The kid’s his best friend (and more), his brother (and more). One thing Damian isn’t, though, is calm.

 

He tricks people with the indifferently-lined mouth and half-lidded eyes, but Damian is anything but calm. He counts everything. He twitches and ticks according to patterns in a room. He holds a knife in his sleeve to throw at any given moment,

 

But he’s floaty. The boy floats like a ghost, pale and foreboding.

 

Tim think this is why everyone finds him calm and frail, even though the boy is anything but.

 

It worries him, too, how only Bruce and him can even tell there’s something off about Damian that can’t be fixed, ignored, or turned on.

 

Kid’s a psycho, and that’s Tim putting it nicely.

 

Of course, it’s not pertinent in most cases. In this one, though, it is.

 

“Wait,” Jason says evenly, inspecting the expanse of ashes that used to be a warehouse that kept roughly 500 men a night. “Where’s the…” He turns to Damian then Tim.

 

Damian’s right at Tim’s side, which he often does when Tim’s around, gently pulling at Tim’s sleeve. 

 

“How’d you evacuate?”

 

_ He didn’t. _ Tim checks his gauntlet.  _ 8:57pm. _ It’s early. He pulls a crisp twenty dollar bill from his belt, hands it to Damian. “Arcade’s still open,” he tells the boy gently. Because no matter how off Damian is, he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t refuse learning it. The blocks just don’t stack.

 

The boy takes the bill. He squeezes Tim’s hand before leaving.

 

Jason’s still staring at the empty space in awe. “B’s gonna kill him.”

 

“Is he?” Tim asks, disinterested.

 

“Maybe he should go lie low with ‘Wing for a few days.”

 

“He stays.”

 

“Don’t be stupid.”

 

_ Scared he’s gonna beat Damian like he beat you? _ Tim wants to say it. Tim wants to say a lot of things.

…

Something’s wrong with Damian.

 

Bruce doesn’t know what, but the boy’s an unknown variable that his gut tells him to account for (the building the other night confirmed it).

 

So, he does such.

 

Tim usually leaves the boy to nap at the manor during patrol. Bruce has Cass cover his sector.

 

“Damian,” Bruce calls, knowing Damian never sleeps and will answer.

 

The boy comes out the darkness of the hallway and to Bruce’s side. 

 

“Alfred’s made French Onion Soup. Would you like some?”

 

Bruce doesn’t know when Damian went off solids, but it will work to his advantage.

 

“Does it have cheese in it?” Damian queries, voice low.

 

“Do you want cheese in it?”

 

“No.”

 

Bruce slides his bowl to the center of the desk.

 

Damian hands Bruce his thermos after pouring out whatever it held before.

 

He pours half the soup into Damian’s thermos before handing it back.

 

The boy nods a thank you before beginning to sip the still steaming liquid. He pauses, smile creeping onto the face. “I can assure you I’m plenty sedated.” He takes another sip.

 

“I have some paperwork to finish up,” Bruce lies.

 

Damian nods, finishing the soup with a few gulps before retreating to the sofa, presumably to nap again.

 

An unknown variable.

…

Everything’s wrong with Damian, but Dick doesn’t mind.

 

He’s seen the kid jump into fights headfirst, get stabbed and not shed a tear.

 

Yet, when the boy burns his hand making soup, he hides in one of Dick’s empty cabinets until he’s fished out after patrol, a shuddery mess on the brink of tears.

 

Dick tells himself he doesn’t mind, reminding the rational part of his brain that Damian’s not rational and can’t be expected to be. He hugs the boy gently and wraps the injured hand, goes out and buys soup and sandwiches from the deli around the corner, bewilders at the incongruently sedate boy before him who flinched at an odd breath a mere hour ago.

 

Damian’s eyes lid. His head lolls and leans against Dick’s arm. His burnt hand lies limp while the other slowly twitches at every scene change in the movie playing on the TV. His chest moves up and down, smooth as an undulating wave.

 

“Want your sandwich?” Dick asks, holding it out to Damian.

 

The boy airly sighs, and his eyes fall closed.

 

“Later then,” he tells himself. “Later.” 

…

They search for the ghost in the night.

 

He has to be there.

 

Who better to haunt the aftermath?

 

Bruce squints.

 

He doesn’t think Damian would go with Ra’s. Dick’s sure, as is Jason, but the longer they wait, the more he thinks Dick’s wrong.

 

Damian’s allegiances have never been clear. The boy’s impulsive, more so than even Jason in his Robin days, and Bruce doesn’t know how to assess it. He’s never asked Tim either, figuring Damian is always on the teen’s side no matter the situation.

 

They need the location now. Assassins are on their trail. Ra’s will have them all killed if they don’t find shelter quickly.

 

Damian knows this, 

 

So where is he?

 

Bruce checks his clock. Twenty seconds and Damian’s late.

 

Fifteen seconds later, a plane flies overhead and a ladder falls from it.

…

Jason knew Damian would come. The boy is the undependable kind of dependable that both excites and terrifies him.

 

The boy hums as Dick runs a finger up and down his arm, eyes their usual dazed appearance.

 

“Damian,” Bruce calls roughly.

 

“Hm?” the boy answers.

 

“Where’s it taking us?”

 

“Location,” Damian mumbles, gaze focusing. “Like you… Secure location to regroup. You said-- Did you want to go somewhere else?” Damian half-rushes to the console. 

 

“Where?” Bruce asks again.

 

Damian still looks confused. “I don’t--”

 

“Country, province, et cetera,” Bruce snaps, typing in his gauntlet.

 

“I can’t tell you that.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because it wouldn’t be secure otherwise.”

 

“Is it League owned?”

 

“No.”

 

Silence.

 

Damian rolls on the balls of his feet. Jason finds the boy is always unsettled by Bruce, bleeding the need for approval the man doesn’t give.

 

“Dami,” Dick calls. He waves the boy back.

 

Damian comes, sitting where he once was, though not as comfortable.

 

_ Bruce. _

…

Bruce is debriefing. Bruce is boring.

 

Everyone knows this but Damian, who listens and nods along and answers every rhetorical question.

 

Dick wonders if he wants this. Does Damian want to be a hero? Does he want to ride the night clad with a Bat on his chest? Dick knows it was what he wanted at Damian’s age (before he knew better). 

 

For Damian, vigilantism may be the right course. He’ll always be fighting. Better it be for the good guys, Dick figures. 

 

He doesn’t think Bruce will ever give Damian the chance. Bruce uses Damian, and he will until he’s squeezed the last drop out, then he’ll drop him. Dick knows this. Maybe he should warn the boy.

… 

Damian’s not a Bat. He’s always around the Bats, but he’s not one. He doesn’t wish he was a Bat either. There’re better things to be, an al Ghul one of them.

 

He thinks the Bats want him to be one, the majority of them anyway, but he knows it’s not his place. It can’t be one’s place, most importantly one who was dipped in death at birth.

 

He can’t be a Bat, not with voices ringing in his head and Ra’s-- for the first time in four months-- requesting his presence. He has to go.

 

“Damian?”

 

He stills behind the bed.

 

“Are you in here?” It’s Dick. Damian doesn’t mind Dick. He likes the young man as much as he’s allowed to like people (besides Tim). Blue eyes appear in the opening of the gap. He wonders for a moment if Dick plans on contorting himself to fit in the gap. Thankfully, he just smiles. “Hey.”

 

Damian never knows how to answer.

 

“Jay wants to know if there’s a Big Belly Burger around here.”

 

He can’t tell if Dick’s joking or not. There isn’t, but surely they know that. “The kitchen’s stocked,” he answers.

 

“Yeah. Alfred’s already making something. When’d he get here?”

 

“Tim secured his travel.”

 

“Where’s Tim?”

 

Off on business, of course, but Dick should know that as well.

 

“Mind keeping me company tonight?”

 

Damian’s fine on his own, but they always think he’ll break if he’s not with Tim, which hasn’t been the case since he was four. He enjoys Dick, though, and nods, accepting the offer. 

 

Damian al Ghul’s not a Bat, but he doesn’t want to be one.

…

Abstract is all Damian paints. Everything is a line or a dot or a pattern. Nothing is of human form. Tim thinks Damian likes it better that way, but he’s no idea as to why. He sits by his artist with a plated sandwich cut in fours and potato chips, slips one of the latter in his mouth. 

 

“Whatcha making?” he asks. Tim likes to have Damian talk. The boy doesn’t talk much, but he needs to because everyone should talk. Tim remembers the first year they met. Damian said a total of five words to him.

 

They’re close, but Damian doesn’t talk. If he talks to anyone, he talks to Tim (Dick if he’s in a talking mood). If he’s not in a talking mood, he talks to Tim if (and mostly only if) Tim bothers him enough (or he’s sad enough).

 

Damian’s sad today, but he’s almost always sad, and Tim never knows why. It’s his default. He wishes Damian would be happy. They’re still young, after all. Before meeting Damian, Tim always thought sad was for people like his parents, who were always grasping for something to make them not sad anymore, whether that be a charity ball or a bottle of whiskey.

 

“Hm?” Tim nudges him gently.

 

Damian’s brush freezes over the canvas.

 

“Did I mess you up?” Tim’s in Damian’s circle. He’d known he was entering the circle when he took a seat by Damian, but for some reason, it’d slipped his mind that Damian wasn’t always open to letting people (Tim) into his circle.

 

“No,” he whispers (it’s always a whisper, a rasp). He begins again.

 

“I have to go by the Cave tonight. Bruce wants to see me, sent me a cryptic text. Though I’m not sure whether it’s just his cryptic nature or something actually threatening, you know?” Tim eats another potato chip.

 

Damian nods.

 

“Want half my sandwich?”

 

Damian doesn’t answer as he paints a few last strokes. His paintbrush is set down. He takes one of the quarters.

 

“Let’s talk,” Tim says. He’s too forthright to say otherwise.

 

“About?” Damian asks.

 

“The painting.”

 

“No.”

 

“What I missed while I was gone.”

 

Damian takes another piece of the sandwich. He’s hungry (Tim takes note). “Nothing happened of paramount importance.”

 

“Tell me the insignificant details.”

 

Damian does. He recounts the past month in the passive aggressive monotone he always takes when Tim leaves him for a while and forgets to call. The sandwich and chips are gone by the time he’s done.

 

Tim wraps him in a hug. “And the painting?”

 

“It’s ugly, the Hunchback of Notre Dame personified. It’s twisted, maladjusted, sunken, disfigured, disillusioned.” 

 

“And you love it?”

 

Damian grins sadly. “And I love it.”

… 

Bruce wonders what Damian will grow up to be.

 

It’s hard to predict with the ghostly gray that is Damian. He’s the grandson of Ra’s al Ghul. He’s half something else. He spends the bulk of his evenings accompanying someone on patrol. He spends the other bulk blowing up buildings full of criminals. He paints. He kills. He has unleveraged resources. He has Tim.

 

Damian doesn’t seem to know either, but he doesn’t seem too worried either.

 

Tim says Damian will be an artist, but the dream is too puffy to be a pure reality.

 

There’s hope for him yet, though.

 

Bruce closes Damian’s file and turns his attention back to Clark’s presentation the new West Wing. You’d think signing the checks would be a ticket out of JLA board meetings. Every time, Bruce finds himself sorely mistaken.

 

The rest of the table claps as Clark finishes and takes a seat. “Anything else, anyone?”

 

Silence.

 

“Okay then. We reconvene a week from today.”

 

As Bruce gets up, taps his boots as he makes his way to his room. The hallways are dimly lit as the always are this time of night. He checks his gauntlet for the time.  _ 11:45. _ It’s early. He can fit in a three hour patrol if he hurries.

 

Bruce enters his room to find an intruder.

 

The boy whose file he’d been studying the past hour sat curled up in the corner of the room. 

 

“What’s wrong?” Bruce asks, because why would Damian come if everything was alright?

 

“Tim’s gone,” Damian says quietly.

 

Bruce kneels in front of him, waiting for Damian to continue.

 

“He won’t be back for at least a week.”

 

“What do you need, chum?”

 

Damian holds out an orange pill bottle. Five pills remain in it. “I only have enough for two more days.”

 

Bruce reads the label.  _ Folate. _ He doesn’t ask why Damian hasn’t told them he’s anemic. He wonders if he ever would have found out had Tim not went out of town. He glances up to see Damian’s still looking at him. Does he think Bruce is going to say no? “We’ll go tomorrow,” he says.

 

Damian visibly relaxes, shoulders lowering. The boy looks lonely. Bruce isn’t sure how it’s possible, but he sees it in Damian. Maybe he’d keep Damian at the manor until Tim returned.

…

Tim watches his breath in the Winter air. Five more minutes, and he can go home. Of course, he’s been telling himself that for the past hour, but every time he gets close to five minutes, another matter is there for him to attend to.

 

He calls burglaries and violence in general matters. That’s all they are, after all. There’s no need to make a big deal out of everything. That’s what his mother used to always say, and Tim likes to live by the sayings of dead people, as their advice is most likely the most entertaining with maximum consequences, death being one of them.

 

So, he shivers and breathes and rubs the handwarmers Bruce got him in his gloves fingers. They’re top notch. He had Lucius make them especially for Tim. They’re not enough tonight, though..

 

“Dancing in the pale moonlight?” It seems Tim’s ghost has come to haunt him tonight. 

 

He grins and turns, finding his ghost nowhere. “Come out.”

 

And the apparition is next to him.

 

“Where were you?” Tim asks.

 

Damian sighs, leaning into Tim’s side.

 

His added warmth is nice.

 

“I dunno,” he says quietly.

 

Tim rolls his eyes. “Let’s go home.”

…

Red. So pretty. Red.

 

Crimson. Cherry. Candy.

 

Rose. Ruby.

 

Red.

 

Red going up. Red going down.

 

Red tears. Red laughs. Red coughs. Red people.

 

Red. Everything’s red.

 

Red hand.

 

How did his hand get red?

 

Blood red.

 

Will it turn crimson if he asks for a cherry on top? That is the saying… Cherry on top. Tim taught him that. 

 

Strawberry red spills from his hand, gushing like jam being squeezed through a bottle. His fingers open and close around the strawberry sauce. Will it taste nice if he licks it? Damian doesn’t much like strawberry sauce, so probably not.

 

A faint thump comes from behind him, a step that doesn’t want to be heard but has been.

 

The foot is too heavy to be Tim’s, but it’s too light to be Bruce’s. Dick would have talked by now, as would Jason. Damian finds it doubtful that Alfred Pennyworth would waste his time breathing the same air Damian does, but the scent of tomato soup that’s made its way to Damian’s nose says otherwise.

 

“If you’d point me to the dining area,” he says.

 

Damian closes the jam in his hand, points to the bar with his clean one. He must be looking for Tim, but surely he knows Tim’s not here yet. Tim doesn’t come back until after patrol, as early as midnight and as late as four in the morning.

 

He examines his painting once more. Small strokes. Big strokes. Old strokes. New strokes. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red dots--

 

Damian doesn’t like being touched. His jam-soaked hand is no one’s business but his own, and he’s not a child that needs shushing.

 

Alfred slowly wipes the jam off with a warm washcloth; he swabs the long cut in Damian’s hand; and he wraps the hand with gauze, so Damian can’t mess with it. “Come eat, my boy.” He takes  Damian’s uninjured hand and Damian to the bar and has the latter sit.

 

Damian stares down a steaming bowl of tomato soup, parmesan and basil sprinkled on top, a spoon and napkin in repose to his right. The red is so rich but the smell’s making him sick; he mostly eats canned soups since he can’t manage to cook without burning himself. He doesn’t say so, just eats half the soup and thanks Alfred and returns to his Red.

 

Red… 

 

Red is many things. Red is happy. Red is sad. Red is a person inside out. Red is red.

 

Alfred takes a seat on the sofa behind him, sighing and muttering about the FA Cup.

 

Damian hands the him the not-red remote. When he goes back to his hand, he’s slightly sad it’s no longer red. He picks at the bandage as he examines the red some more.

…

The Ghost of Gotham haunts heroes and villains alike. 

 

One person who has come to love the boy as much as he can love is the Joker.

 

He is homicidal. He likes guns. He loves red.

 

“JJ,” he sighs, visibly bored. He sits in his throne with nothing to do. He’s no plan to perform, no heinous crime to commit, no Bat to bother. “JJ, come come.”

 

He calls the ghost JJ because he believes the ghost will follow in his footsteps. The ghost knows that-- though he’s crazy-- he’s not near crazy enough to be the next Joker. That and the fact that he’s an al Ghul encourages him to remove himself from anything particularly funny or unsavory he’s invited to. Besides, what would the great Ra’s al Ghul think if he found out his only grandson doesn’t mind the company of a maniac?

 

“JJ! Come sit with me! I’m bored.”

 

Damian perches on the side of the throne and balances his sketchbook on his thigh.

 

“What’re you drawing?”

 

He shrugs. That’s the fun of abstract. He never has to answer that question.

 

“I’m bored!” the clown exclaims. “Can’t we go dancing or kill the Bat?”

 

He shakes his head. Dancing is boring, and the sky’s not red enough for a ballroom.

 

“I’m  _ starving. _ How about a break to eat?”

 

“I have soup.”

 

“I want… a burger!”

 

Damian’s no idea why he’s been charmed by the clown, but his company is only beat by the Bat’s and Tim’s, and he can’t find the harm in blowing up buildings and slitting throats in the name of red and for the sake of art, of which there are no nobler causes.

…

How many people die alone? How many people die lonely? What’s the difference in the numbers? Is the tolerance nominal? Paltry?

 

None of it matters. Ghosts live on for eternity, haunting until they don’t want to. Then, they exit stage right and find a grave to rest in.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is drybonesshallcomealive. Please comment if you enjoyed the fic, and feel free to ask any questions.
> 
> Do with this what you will, dear Readers.


End file.
